DS given melatonin gummies as prank by “friends at sleepover

[Anonymous]

Please tell the coach and all the parents. If my son participated in something like this, even as a silent bystander, we would take it extremely seriously. This is the type of stupid group think that is dangerous and can escalate quickly. I’m sure some parents will brush it off but some won’t and they will teach their children to step up the next time. We have to teach kids how to behave and help them see the consequences of their stupidity.

[Anonymous]

If my child did this, I would be horrified. I would definitely went to know so that there would be appropriate consequences before there was another incident that really hurt someone. I am really sorry this happened.

[Anonymous]

He's obviously not part of this group and should no longer socialize with them anyhow, so I would contact the parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would (a) tell the school; (b) call the police and file a police report; and (c) tell the soccer coach.

That was dangerous, unlawful, and could have been deadly.

Melatonin. This isn’t heroin. You’re insane

You can overdose on any drug over the counter, illegal, legal. He had symptoms of having overdosed on melatonin by vomiting and inability to stay awake. Not deadly but very unpleasant.

If they get away with this who’s to say what they’ll try next.

[Anonymous]

Just in time for this thread:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/very-attractive-hazard-melatonin-thc-080000486.html

[Anonymous]

Melatonin overdoses are up
A 2023 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at 25 brands of over-the-counter melatonin gummy bears and found that 88% had a dosage inconsistent with their labeling. Some were lower and some were as much as 3½ times higher than the labeled dose.

...
So far in 2023, Florida’s Poison Control Centers have tracked 996 calls about melatonin-related illness, with 75% of these being for children ages 5 or younger. This accounts for a slight increase in pediatric cases (2.6%) from the previous year, said Wendy Blair Stephan, Health Education Coordinator for the Florida Poison Information Center. Stephan said Florida’s Poison Control Centers also have logged another 47 cases of exposure to “melatonin combined with other substances.”

Nationally, a study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found over the last 10 years, more than 4,000 kids were hospitalized from melatonin overdoses; five children required ventilation and two died.

[Anonymous]

I'm so sorry OP. Like most of the PPs, I think you have to call the parents and pull your son from the soccer team. These are not your son's friends, so no loss to him. And hopefully their parents will make sure they appreciate how dangerous this stunt was and make sure they never do anything like this again.

I would also reach out to the school, even though this didn't happen on their watch and they're not responsible. The counselors have seen and dealt with A LOT. Especially if it's a small private (but even if it's a big public) they will have good instincts and intel.

Kids do stupid things. That's why adults matter. Give the parents a chance to make sure their kids don't do more stupid things. Maybe they'll rise to the occasion, maybe they won't, but their kids may do worse unless. until someone intervenes.

And on the off chance you're in MoCo and your kid is a rising freshman, I know an MSI classics team with an amazing soccer coach that's looking to add to its roster. We lucked into this team and I've sometimes thought it's the best thing that ever happened to my kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell parents.
Find another soccer team.
Depending on parents reaction, share with current soccer team coach why you are leaving.

+1

Agree. This is not ok at all. Why does he want to patch things up with a bunch of mean morons anyway.

[Anonymous]

To the idiot who said “melatonin isn’t heroin” — just imagine for a second that your daycare provider or nanny was giving your infant melatonin so he or she would sleep through the whole day instead of actually caring for them. Is that child abuse? If yes, then giving a plateful of melatonin to an unknowing child, is equivalently as horrifying. OP, please tell the parents. Here’s a script:

I need to talk to you about something very uncomfortable and frankly, horrifying. I picked X up from your house and he was abnormally sleepy and vomited while we were in the car. I understand that he was given a bag of candy gummies last night, and after he had finished them, the other boys at the sleepover laughed at the prank they just pulled on him: which was mixing in at least 15 melatonin gummies with the normal gummies so X would unknowingly eat it. He felt the effects fairly immediately and fell asleep, and then vomited overnight as well. I took him to ER/Urgent Care immediately after he vomited in the car. As I’m sure you’d agree, this is an absolutely unacceptable, completely horrifying “prank”, and I am planning on telling the other parents what happened. The consequences could have been far worse if X had choked on his vomit while sleeping, or if his body had an even more severe reaction. Frankly, X really likes the boys and does not want me to talk to you about this, but if he did something like this, I would want to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please tell the coach and all the parents. If my son participated in something like this, even as a silent bystander, we would take it extremely seriously. This is the type of stupid group think that is dangerous and can escalate quickly. I’m sure some parents will brush it off but some won’t and they will teach their children to step up the next time. We have to teach kids how to behave and help them see the consequences of their stupidity.

+1.

OP Please tell the coach and all the parents. This could have had dangerous consequences. These boys weren't thinking "Oh melatonin, it's not dangerous" they were thinking "Oooh, melatonin will make him pass out!" It's the intent that matters. Speaking as a women who has been roofied and date raped in college, this shit is serious and needs to be addressed asap. Both for the instigators and the silent bystanders.

[Anonymous]

I just want to say that there is surely another team out there for your son which is not filled with d—cks. My son is on a 08 team (14 and 15 year olds) and the boys are pretty nice — and several of them are well within the realm of what would be considered quirky or geeky (including my kid). They are a travel team but don’t play the at top top level. There are teams out there where the boys are supportive — don’t let your son settle for this crap. He deserves better.

[Anonymous]

I haven’t read all the responses but as a parent active in my kids’ soccer club, this is hazing and a Safe Sport violation that should be reported.

https://uscenterforsafesport.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Hazing-Trifold.pdf

[Anonymous]

Your DS don’t want you to contact the other kids’ parents so I wouldn’t. Don’t dismss his request. I had a similar situation and didn’t listen to my DS, we ended having to leave the school because he got branded. He struggled at the next school.. for us it wasn’t worth not listening to our child

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS(15) went to a sleepover Saturday night and was given melatonin gummies as a prank by his “friends”.


It was about 14 boys camping in one of the boys backyard. They were watching movies on an outdoor screen and eating snacks. One of the boys fixed DS a plate of various snacks that included fruit snacks with melatonin gummies mixed in.

We don’t know exactly how much he ate but probably potentially as many as 15. He said towards the end of the movie he started feeling very drowsy and dizzy and ended up falling asleep. This was probably around 10:45pm. He woke up around 1:30am feeling sick and ended up vomiting, felt better and continued to sleep. He assumed he ate too much junk.

He said he had a very hard time waking up and when he did the other boys were laughing and asking “sleep well?” “We’re you tired last night?” and they had also written on his face and hidden a lot of his items.

One of the boys ended up disclosing that they had given him (and only him) melatonin gummies last night. Then apparently all the other boys laughed and said it was a prank.

DS texted me to pick him up and I got him a round 11:00am and he was still super groggy. I assumed they were up all night. He then got nauseous again and I had to pull over the car for him to vomit. I was slightly worried they had been drinking and when I asked he then he told me about the melatonin prank. I was super concerned and we ended up going to urgent care after calling poison control.

They ran a few test and did bloodwork and everything came back normal (no drugs or alcohol in system). They were not able to test for levels of melatonin in his blood at this urgent care center.

He got some Zofran, fluids and napped while being observed and he is now totally fine.

He is begging me not to confront the parents but I find this behavior very very concerning.

All these boys are on the same soccer team but DS is the odd man out and has been picked on by a few of the boys before. I’m not sure if every single boy was involved or not, but they all seemed to at least be aware from what DS told me.

I 100% believe DS as be does not lie. He’s a great kid but has some issues socializing and so often becomes the target of his peers.

What if they had given him something else? Something riskier than Melatonin gummies? What are these boys going to do in 3 years in college? They have time to mature and understand what they did was wrong but I believe their parents should know.

DS says this will make things much worse for him, which I also understand.

Thoughts?

Terrible that you have to deal with that situation. As a parent, my immediate reaction would be to call the police and press charges. Drugging someone is not a prank, it’s a crime. That said, escalating the situation in that way will almost certainly have significant blowback for your DS, and the kids who were involved are just going to lie and cover for each other, so the sad truth is that nothing productive would come from that course of action. So maybe the rational thing to do is to suck it up, let it go, and keep your DS the hell away from this crowd. Not fair but perhaps the smart play. You might also reach out to the parent who hosted the sleep over to let them know what happened—my view is that as host I’m responsible for what happens on my property and I’d be super pissed too—but you might well be dealing with someone with very different values and just creating more problems. FWIW, the kids probably didn’t intend real harm, it’s just irresponsible stupid teen bs. Bottom line: you might just have to let this go as a matter of prudence. Sucks but stuff happens. If it were me given this set of factors I’d be sorely tempted to engage in some off-the-books retaliation, but that’s likely not very practical here either.

[Anonymous]

I’m not a big fan of telling on other kids. If there was beer at a house and my kid drank then a lot is on him and us. But this is not that situation.

This is kids giving a harmful substance to another kid with his knowledge. These were not 5 year olds.

1. All of the parents need to know.
2. The coach and the director of coaching for them club needs to know this took place.
3. Ask the coach for times he/she is available for a group zoom call and set one up.

Email to parents -

Hello. We are xxxx’s parents. On (date) xxxx. attended the team overnight party at yyyy’s home. During the party xxxx was given gummy snacks by someone which were not candy but instead were melatonin pills. After eating the drugs he passed out. He woke up in the morning hours and vomited. When we picked him up he was obviously still suffering from the drugs and vomited again on the drive home. We then detoured and took him to urgent care.

As this was a gathering associated with the zzz team we have informed Coach xxxx and xxxx who is the Director of Coaching and asked them to participate in a zoom call to be held on xxxxx at xxxx pm. The number for the call is xxxxx.